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Carl M. Cannon is the Washington Bureau Chief of RealClearPolitics and a past recipient of the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting and the Aldo Beckman Award, the two most prestigious awards for White House coverage. Previous positions include Executive Editor of Politics Daily, Washington Bureau Chief for Reader's Digest, White House correspondent for both the Baltimore Sun and National Journal, a fellow-in-residence at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and a past president of the White House Correspondents' Association. He is the author of The Pursuit of Happiness in Times of War, co-author of Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy with Lou Cannon, and Circle of Greed with Patrick Dillon. Carl was also a member of the San Jose Mercury-News staff awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

"From the arrival of the Mayflower through the 2016 election, [this book] explores five hundred years of American history, revealing a compelling tale for each day in the calendar year, ... [including] how presidents reacted privately to the loss of American astronauts, what Dwight Eisenhower really thought about playing football against the great Jim Thorpe, the legal grounds for the first American divorce, who wrote 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer'--and who profited from it"--Back cover.